In "The Shining Eyes of Dawn," Marilyn Hawkins recounts the struggles as her daughter, Dawn, battled brain cancer.Courtesy photo

WAYLAND, MI — Marilyn Hawkins experienced every
parent's worst nightmare in March 1975: being told her child has cancer.

"I wanted to believe it was a bad dream," Hawkins, 69,
said. "I went into total shock. I wanted somebody to tell me it wasn't true."

Dawn Smith battled brain cancer for seven and a half years
before dying on August 20, 1982, at age 17.

Hawkins, who uses the pen name Marilyn Smith-Hawkins after she married her second husband, Rick Hawkins, in 2006, has outlined her daughter's struggles, as well
as her own struggles, in her book "The Shining Eyes of Dawn." The book was
published by Tate Publishing last year.

Hawkins, who was born and raised in Wayland and was a graduate of Wayland
Union High School before moving to Florida in 1995, said she wants to help parents who are struggling to cope with a child's cancer diagnosis.

About half way through Dawn's health battle, Hawkins started to keep notes, which she said helped her cope.

"I think what it did was kind of therapy at the time, too," she said. "To write down what I was going through and what Dawn was going through and what was happening to her."

A mission trip to Haiti motivated Hawkins to write the book. She took two mission trips — one in 1983 and one in 1985 — working at Grace Children's Hospital.

While holding a sick girl, Hawkins said she had a vision of her daughter saying, "Mom, I'm OK, she needs you now."

"I just got goose bumps all over me," Hawkins said. "Thinking, wow, maybe I can be useful in some other way for children. My daughter is trying to send me a signal. She's in heaven, happy."

Hawkins started writing "The Shining Eyes of Dawn" in 1983 and finished it within a year. Difficulties with her first publisher delayed broad release of the book until last year.

When her daughter was sick in the 1970s, there were few resources about coping with cancer, Hawkins said. One book she found at the time: "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner.

"I figure if a rabbi had trouble with his faith and questioning his faith," she
said, "then it's no wonder that I'm questioning my faith."

Dawn's battle

In October 1974, Hawkins noticed her daughter was acting abnormally. Dawn, a very active, tomboyish girl, suddenly felt tired all of the time and wasn't interested in rollerblading, school work or working in the school cafeteria — activities she had once loved to do.

"She was laying around at home," Hawkins said of her then 9-year-old daughter, "and that wasn't like her."

A diagnosis was elusive for several months and, at the time, there were only two CAT scanners in the state in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Both had waiting lists.

"(Dawn's) depression was kind of my depression, too," Hawkins said. "It was hard for me to admit that I was kind of in a depression, but I had to really work through accepting all of this.

"Here, I had a normal (9-year-old), and now I had one that I
didn't even know if she was going to live."

When a second tumor developed in May 1982, Gracias told Hawkins doing
nothing would be the most humane thing for Dawn. She had the maximum amount of radiation allowed, and chemotherapy would have little effect on the tumor.

The new tumor paralyzed Dawn requiring her to use a wheel
chair. By that summer, Dawn had lost her ability to speak and went into a coma. Hawkins communicated with her daughter through eye
contact, the reason behind her naming the book "The Shining Eyes of Dawn."

"Ever since I have lost my daughter, I've had this growing
need to try to help families," she said. "So they didn't feel lost like I did
back in the '70s."

The book sells for $15, but $5 from each sale will go to the Jessica June Foundation, for which Hawkins volunteers.

She will attend the Relay for Life event in Wayland on July 26-27, where she will be selling her book and donating part of the proceeds to Relay for Life.

Hawkins said the biggest piece of advice she can give
to parents is don't hesitate to ask for help.

"Don't hesitate to ask for help for dealing with what you
feel you're not able to cope with," she said. "Don't hesitate to grab a friend
to talk to, because you can find a lot of help by just getting it out."